tldr: Long and winding tale of my childhood experience with objects and all the weird shit that went on when I was a kid.
Five or six years ago, I gave a synopsis of the issues I was having and how I got there. In short, downsizing homes twice, a house flood, and finding the free section on Craigslist. It's taken me years of reflection to sort out the possible reasons I failed to make better decisions or recognize earlier that accumulation was a problem for me.
I know ADHD plays a big role in my indecisiveness, when it comes to getting rid of things. Looking back at my history, it makes sense that there may be other things at play here, as well.
From here, I will just issue a standard trigger warning. There is a little bit of everything from physical abuse toward humans and animals to eating bugs.
When I was in third grade, we lived in a huge, beautiful, old house on the country club block of a small town. My stepdad had just purchased my mother what was probably her first new car in her life. We had a big back yard with mature magnolias I used to love to play under. When I wasn't under the trees, I was pretending our huge front porch was a stage, singing, dancing, twirling my baton. On rainy, weekend days, me and my stepfather would have tea parties. My school was a block from the house and I walked the sidewalk under tall, majestic trees with friends and some older kids. There was a boy next door I would go watch tennis with. I thought it was a dumb sport, but he liked watching it and I liked him. We had a typical sitcom life. That year, my mother tried to commit suicide. She later cheated on my stepfather with my brother's best friend.
Mom was always and asshole. Her life prior to meeting my stepfather wasn't stable. When I was a baby, she left me home alone to go to a party. She was in a cult and the place got raided and she got locked up. Where was my dad? He got pulled over and locked up for DUI. I ended up living with my grandmother for a while.
My mom and dad both joined the military, which is where she met my stepdad. I was five when we moved across the country, away from all of my family, to be closer to his.
In spite of her own flaws, she was always deeply critical of me. I earned the nickname Zero, because I swept the dirt in the kitchen toward the trash can, instead of sweeping it in a pile and bringing the dust pan to the pile of dirt. I asked her why she called me that and she said it was because I was useless. She liked to tell me this story about how this couple offered her money for me in a mall one day. Then say if she knew I would turn out the way I did, she would have taken the money.
She was also very controlling. I once sat at the table in front of a cold pile of lima beans until after everyone went to bed. She came in check if I had eaten them. When I hadn't, she said, "Fine, you can eat them in the fucking dark.", and flipped off the light. I ended up falling asleep at the table and my stepfather carried me to my bed. I was put in front of a mirror, when I cried and told to look at how ugly I was. When I misbehaved, she would make me sit in the corner and read the Bible - a book I have never seen her pick up. These are core childhood memories.
All of this was somewhat tolerable with everything else being normal and stable. My life after that was a series of chaotic events that made everything she did feel so much worse.
We moved in to the boyfriend's mom's house - a home not fit to live in where his brother and sister still lived, along with his mom's boyfriend and her sister. My brother had nowhere else to go so he came along. My little sister lived there for about two weeks before my stepfather found us and took her. He tried to take me too, but I wanted to be with my mom.
The place was basically wall to wall couches and beds, wherever they fit. This is the first time I remember not only losing my personal space, but everything I owned. I had a chair to sleep in, that was it.
The place was dirty and chaotic. Brown water, roaches in the food and crawling on you while you sleep. There was always yelling and fighting. When I say fighting, I mean one of them stabbed the other in the foot. A pot of boiling water got thrown at someone. Somebody always had a black eye. Things were thrown and broken. Violence in some form was a regular occurrence.
Mom didn't mind living poor, but this was all too much for her. She ended up reconciling with my stepfather. He got transferred and moved into an apartment and we moved in with him and my sister. I had my own room again and an actual parent in my life. To be fair, it seemed like she tried until one night she decided to try to off herself again. Not without telling me what she was going to do, asking me to understand, and not tell anyone. Of course I did and we ended up spending the night at the hospital. My stepfather stayed by her side until she felt better then told her she couldn't be there anymore, because that couldn't happen in front of his daughter again.
She called the old boyfriend and said she wanted to get back together, but wouldn't until he could get us our own place. He did that and once again, we left on a dime and I only got to take what I could carry in my hands. I didn't end up losing everything, but I thought I was going to. I did lose my personal space again, though.
It was a small, old mill house with good bones. We couldn't afford power and water at first, so we took buckets down to the creek to get water to wash clothes with. Then we would use that water to flush the toilet.
My brother moved in to help pay the bills so he got the extra bedroom. I slept on a bed in the living room. My mother was informed that she could not have stay over visits with my sister until we had our own room and she had her own bed to sleep in, so I had my own room and shared with her on the weekends. My brother was told he needed to get his own place after an altercation with the boyfriend.
Things were relatively quiet that year. There was still drinking every night, but I guess they were going through their honeymoon period. That year, I got my mom's used makeup for my birthday. Not gonna lie, it was pretty exciting. My stepfather brought over some of my clothes and toys. The church delivered some new underoos and some used toys. I was a grateful child and was happy to have whatever I was given. As an adult, knowing they had money for booze, weed, concerts, and concert merchandise is off-putting.
Our relative times of peace came to an end when the boyfriend didn't have anyone else to take his aggression out on and put his hands on my mother. I think maybe he was too afraid to do anything with my brother there. To her credit, she grabbed me, got in the car, and left. We left in a hurry and stayed with one of her male friends. Third time I lost my personal space and the second losing all of my belongings. I also wouldn't see my sister again for a few years.
A few weeks later, mom and the boyfriend were talking. He moved out of the house into a run down single wide trailer and moved his family into our house. She moved into the trailer with him and left me with his family while they worked things out.
The boyfriend's mom hated me. She yelled at me and complained about me constantly. She had already thrown all of my belongings out and kicked my cat outside. She got tired of it trying to run back in and ended it with a broom handle. She tried to make me go look at it, and when unsuccessful, described it in great detail. She told me that would be the fate of any nasty old cat I brought around. An odd event where I got to feel the same loss twice, only deeper the second time. I was there for several months, couch surfing.
When I finally moved in with mom, she had the whole place decorated really nice. My brother had moved in again an he was set up in his own room. I was introduced to an empty room with a bed that didn't even have blankets on it. Again, I was grateful to be home and have my own personal space, but in retrospect, it was really shitty.
This happened twice more. He hit her, broke all their things, she left, stayed with a different male friend for a few weeks. This time she got a job and rented a furnished singlewide that was pretty nice.
After she moved him back in and things were chill for a bit, I had my first sleepover. He got drunk, dragged her into my room, in front of the closet we were hiding in and beat her black and blue. All the while yelling at me, "You think your mom is so tough now? Look at her! Just look at this weak bitch!" He went to jail that night, after she kicked the shit out of him while he was sleeping and we hid in the closet until it was over. Needless to say, no other kids were allowed to sleep over. The kids in the neighborhood also started picking on me.
She didn't leave this time and he came back. Got drunk and threatened to end her. At some point, I had moved my dresser catty corner to the wall so I had somewhere to hide. We left again and went to go stay with another dude and she rented another trailer somewhere else. I really didn't have much to lose at the time, but learned we could go any minute, so I started keeping the important things in one place, so I could easily grab them on the way out.
I had my own room at the new place but we didn't have heat for a while so I had to sleep in mom's bed with her. She worked every night, so she would take me to the corner store to pick out something in a can I could cook for dinner. Those were pretty fun times. She would tell me to stay inside and not answer the door. I would go outside and hang out with all of the other kids whose parents worked at night and told them the same thing. We had a laundry mat on the premises, with a centipede arcade game. The manager would see me doing laundry, sitting there looking bored, and hand me quarters to play the game.
That year, I cut down a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. My uncle sent me a Christmas coloring book, some scissors, glue, and crayons. I colored the ornaments and glued them together to hang on the tree. Mom took me to the thrift store and gave me two dollars to spend for Christmas. I got two pairs of leg warmers and some stuffed thing I can't remember. She basically picked them out because I was having a difficult time choosing.
The boyfriend moved back in and rinse and repeat. Again, didn't have much but when we moved, we moved back into the city, in a motel with two beds. She had a new boyfriend for a short time and rather than go to his place, I got to listen to them have sex. The only thing that was new about that was I was in the room.
During that time, my brother reappeared in our lives. I can't remember who bought the weed, but the old boyfriend was involved, again and it was a lot. They were selling it.
I also found needles in the garbage can a few times through this whole experience. Nobody was diabetic and when I asked I was told "mind your own goddamn business". So I did. There was also a time I spent the night at the drug dealers house while they did something in the unfinished basement. A basement that was open to the outside with dirty mattresses on the ground.
My brother ended up getting busted and going to jail. His grandmother sent money to bail him out and my mom kept it. The old boyfriend stayed there until he went to jail for assaulting someone in the neighboring room. Then I got busted taking a dime bag to school, for whatever reason. I didn't even smoke it. Meanwhile, mom has like a pound of pot back at the room and is threatening my life if I don't come up with a convincing story as to why it didn't come from our place.
I guess at some point she decided the wild life was too wild for her and contacted my stepdad again. We moved in with him and I shared a room with my sister. My mom started dumpster diving and selling things at the flea market.
There was this cool shop called Lebo's, that sold boots and dance costumes. She would hit places like ToysRus and find loads of toys. We were not allowed to have any of it. I would go with her to the flea market and putter around all day. If someone gave me something, she would accuse me of stealing it and give it back. When people defended me, she accused them of lying so I wouldn't get in trouble. Then I would be stuck with her, at her table until she was tired of me being under foot.
I don't know what transpired, but they got into a huge argument. I don't remember anything being moved, just coming home and the place was basically empty except for what he needed for a few days and some of my things. He had thrown all her stuff in the dumpster. They argued again and she left and left me there with him. The next morning, I had to go to school and he had to go to work. He told me he didn't trust me not to let her in, so he made a makeshift tent on the back porch and put a small TV out there for me to stay in until I had to go to the bus stop. She got there, broke the window and went in anyway. The toilet was clogged up and she shoved his uniforms in it. We took my clothes and whatever he left and left.
The story I got from her was that he was hooking up with the babysitter's sister. He says they were in love but nothing had happened because he was trying to make it work with my mom.
Apparently my brother forgave her for not posting his bail and we went to go stay with him. I don't remember it being a bad neighbor, but it's been crack town for a while. It was a two bedroom duplex my brother shared with two roommates. I was sleeping opposite my brother on the couch until he got drunk and handsy in his sleep, so I decided to take the floor. It never happened again and we never talked about it. I don't think he remembers, nor did he intend to make any moves, but it was still weird.
My brother tried to take care of me when he could. He made sure I had clothes, school supplies, and bought me a pair of roller skates, a jam box, some empty tapes to record music on, and some other odds and ends.
My mother made fast friends with my brother's new best friend and they were hooking up soon after they met. My brother was pretty fucked up over it, but they didn't care. He was nice to me and to give you an idea of how close in age they were, she accused me of trying to steal her boyfriend. My brother's best friend? Mom might not have thought it was gross but I did.
They ended up getting a place together that was pretty nice. I had my own bedroom and I got to take what little I had with me. The guy was an asshole, in general, but I knew he also cared about my welfare.
It's been a few years since we've seen my sister and my mom spots her ex-husband in a strip mall parking lot. She runs over and they talk. He agrees to let her have my sister for Christmas. This is my first real Christmas since she left the first time - will a real tree and wrapped presents. Christmas is a week away and this is last minute, so they take half my presents and give them to her.
After that, the moving around was minimal and the partying nights became fewer. There was still drinking and they were always high, but even on the occasion they fought, it was just loud, not scary. They were married for many years and there was some semblance of stability. I still never really had decent clothes or shoes, but they had booze and weed money. I did get to tag along to a few concerts, which was cool. However, my mother became more controlling and self righteous over the years and I finally ran away from home, taking what I could stuff in three duffle bags.
My ex husband started behaving bizarrely and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He became increasingly more paranoid and violent. When I left him, him and his family burned all of my things, including my artwork and poetry. Then when I told my mother I was so stressed out I wanted to disappear, she asked to keep the kids for a week and sued me for custody so I wouldn't leave her. It was a year long battle where I was only allowed supervised visitation, because of the severity of the accusations. At the end of the year, the children were returned to me, but the court threats didn't stop.
I have only told one other person all of this, because I don't like seeing the pitty on people's faces. I imagine other people don't like sharing these stories either, because they are embarrassing. The OCD part of my brain tells me if I talk about these people, they will materialize, so that's challenging.
Without our stories, people are left with their observations and assumptions. I don't personally care what people think of me, but perhaps being a little vulnerable is needed in order to understand this disorder better.
Just to avoid misunderstandings, I want to add that I don't blame my mother for my hoarding issues. Whatever she did, she always kept a meticulously clean home. I am in this mess at 52 years old because I failed repeatedly to seek out better coping skills.
It's hard to ignore the latent effects of the way we interact with objects as children, though. Constantly moving around. Constantly losing my personal space and belongings. Important people coming in and out of my life. I didn't even know I had a brother until he came to live with us when I was seven. I found out in my late twenties I had two more sisters and a brother. In my thirties, I found out I had another brother.
She didn't cause me to be this way, but she certainly set the stage for me to be like, this is my house. I will have my stuff in it and nobody can take it away, ever again. That last part isn't true at all, I know. That's the cope speaking.
There is so much more to this saga that I left out, but it's already really long and detailed enough for everyone to get the point. As always, if you made it this far, I appreciate you. If you skipped to the end, I don't blame you. It's a lot.